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PM Abe’s specific maneuvers towards rehabilitation give the
appearance that the Fukushima full-blown nuclear meltdown is relatively
minimal in comparison to Chernobyl’s disastrous explosion of 1986. After
all, to this day, Chernobyl after 30 years is still a 30km “exclusion
zone” where nobody is allowed due to excessive levels of radiation.

Meanwhile, back in Japan, PM Abe is moving people back into former restricted zones four years after the fact.

It remains an open question as to whether the Fukushima aftermath
will be worse than Chernobyl. After all, the China Syndrome may be
actively at work at Fukushima and as such could last over many
lifetimes.

Still, the immediate direct exposure of radiation over population
centers at Chernobyl was significantly more than Fukushima of which 80%
drifted out into the Pacific Ocean.

But, that may be slight solace because, horrifyingly, nobody knows
where the Fukushima melted cores are located, nobody knows; it’s
absolutely true, nobody knows whether the molten cores are within the
containment vessels, outside of the vessels, deep in the ground, or
cataclysmically traversing towards the water table.

Regardless, PM Abe’s directive appears to be: “No problem, we’ve cleaned up a whole lot of the mess outside of the immediate meltdown… so, move back into former restricted areas.”
Still, it’s nearly impossible to give an all-clear signal at this
stage, especially with the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station
containment vessels completely out of control with wild atom-splitting
rogue radionuclides spewing into the Pacific Ocean, and who knows where
else (Einstein must be spinning in his grave).

The China Syndrome Worry
“While a molten reactor core wouldn’t burn ‘all the way through to
China’ it could enter the soil and water table and cause huge
contamination in the crops and drinking water around the power plant.
It’s a nightmare scenario, the stuff of movies. And it might just have
happened at Fukushima,” Eben Harrell, Was Fukushima a China Syndrome?
Time Magazine, May 16, 2011.

If Chernobyl is a leading indicator of Fukushima’s future, “Chernobyl
offers many lessons about what Princeton University engineering
professor Robert Socolow calls the ‘afterheat’ of a nuclear disaster,
but it’s the generational lesson that’s most important. Because some of
the isotopes released during a nuclear accident remain radioactive for
tens of thousands of years, cleanup is the work not just of first
responders but also of their descendants and their descendants’
descendants. Asked when the reactor site would again become inhabitable,
Ihor Gramotkin, director of the Chernobyl power plant, replies, ‘At
least 20,000 years,” Eben Harrell, Apocalypse Today: Visiting Chernobyl,
25 Years Later, Time Magazine, April 26, 2011.

As of June 12th, 2015, the Abe government is returning residents to
the Iitate village in Fukushima’s Prefecture four short years post the
nuclear plant meltdowns, and by the upcoming 2018 year, the prime
minister is eliminating state compensation to victims.

Not only that, but since August 2015, PM Abe is reopening nuclear
facilities, the Sendai No. 1 reactor has already resumed full-scale
commercial operations.

Contrarywise, according to former PM Naoto Kan, who was prime
minister during the Fukushima disaster: “I now consider nuclear energy
to be the most dangerous form of energy, and the risks associated with
it are too great for us to continue generating atomic power,” Former
Japanese PM Naoto Kan: Fukushima Radically Changed my Perspective,
Deutsche Welle, Feb. 25, 2015.
One of the issues in trying to assess the dangers, as well as timing
of recovery, for Fukushima is believability. Who can be trusted? In that
regard, the Abe government’s enactment of strict extraordinarily broad
secrecy laws, similar to WWII, with the threat of prison sentences up to
10 years for any violators of indeterminately wide-open secrecy laws
undermines confidence in believability of the Japanese government, by
definition.

On the other hand, respected third-party NGOs seem more reliable, if
only because they do not have an axe to grind, no broad open-ended
secrecy laws, no threats of prison sentences, no scare tactics, no
public demonstrations in opposition, no lost revenues, no cleanup costs,
no threats to human health, no threats to marine life, and no
connections to the upcoming 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Greenpeace Japan conducted a radiation survey and sampling program in
Iitate, a village in Fukushima Prefecture. Even after decontamination,
radiation dose rates measured ten times (10xs) the maximum allowed to
the general public.

According to Greenpeace Japan: “The Japanese government plans to lift
restrictions in all of Area 2 [2], including Iitate, where people could
receive radiation doses of up to 20mSV each year and in subsequent
years. International radiation protection standards recommend public
exposure should be 1mSv/year or less in non-post accident situations.
The radiation limit that excluded people from living in the 30km zone
around the Chernobyl nuclear plant exclusion zone was set at 5mSV/year,
five years after the nuclear accident. Over 100,000 people were
evacuated from within the zone and will never return.” (Greenpeace Press
Release, July 21, 2015).

So, Chernobyl’s 5mSV/year radiation limit morphs into the possibility
of 20mSV radiation each year for some areas of Fukushima, subjecting
residents to what?

According to Green Cross International, founded in 1993 by Mikhail
Gorbachev, who was president of the Soviet Union when Chernobyl
exploded: Both Chernobyl and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant
disasters are categorized as Level 7 events defined as a major release
of radioactive material.

“However, the number of people affected by radiation in Japan has
tripled when compared to Chernobyl, says Nathalie Gysi of Green Cross
Switzerland… water leakage at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant remains a
problem four years after… There continue to be rising doubts over the
safety of seafood, such as radioactivity levels in tuna and other fish.”
(Green Cross Int’l March 11, 2015).

The Green Cross International 2015 Fukushima Report was prepared
under direction of Jonathan M. Samet, MD, University of Southern
California professor Keck School of Medicine and chair Department of
Preventive Medicine, using the same standards as a similar 2012 study of
Chernobyl.
According to the report: “Continued exposure to low-level radiation,
entering the human body on a daily basis through food intake, is of
particular consequence.”

Morphologically Defective Fir Trees
According to the National Institute of Radiological Science/Japan
(“NIRS” est. 1957 as Japan’s only institute of radiology science) fir
trees in Fukushima are exhibiting “strange growth patterns,” meaning the
trees are stunted and showing morphological defects, in particular
bifurcation or the splitting of a tree body into two parts at the tip.
Thus, further normal tree growth is stopped dead.

Fir trees normally extend upward in growth patterns with two or more
branches each year. However, 98% of inspected fir trees within a 3.5km
area of the Fukushima damaged nuclear plants have severe defects. NIRS
believes radiation causes abnormalities of fir trees “without a top
bud,” hence no more normalized growth. Results of inspected trees found
125 out of 128 abnormal.

Thus, begging the question: If tree growth is stunted/deformed within
3.5km of the damaged nuclear plants, what’s the analogous impact on
people?

Missing Birds
According to CBS News (April 16, 2015): “Birds are becoming a rarity
around the damaged nuclear site… dramatic reductions… in terms of
swallows in Fukushima, there had been hundreds if not thousands in many
of these towns where we were working. Now we are seeing a few dozen…
It’s just an enormous decline,” (Dr. Tim Mousseau, biologist, University
of South Carolina, Dwindling Bird Populations in Fukushima, sc.edu,
4/14/15).

Fukushima Myths
Chris Harris, a former senior nuclear reactor operator for over three
decades and currently a nuclear consultant, claims Fukushima is an
extinction level event: Containment is a myth, there isn’t any; cold
shutdown is a myth; cooling is a myth because there is no way to measure
cooling when nobody knows where the nuclear fuel is located; waste
processing is a myth; cleanup is a myth because it’s a “waste generation
facility” that won’t stop.

Voices Within Japan
According to Yauemon Sato, the ninth-generation head of a sake
brewery, since 1790, and the president of Aizu Denryok, an electric
utility: “You know the caldron of hell? You will be sent to hell and
will be boiled in that caldron if you do evil. And there are four such
caldrons in Fukushima…

And the disaster has yet to end. It continues to
recur every day. More than 300 tons of water, contaminated with intense
levels of radioactive substances, are being generated every day,” The
Asahi Shimbun, May 1, 2015.

Hiroaki Koide, professor (retired) at Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute reacts to PM Abe, as of April 24, 2015:
“The Prime Minister [said Fukushima] had been brought to a close. My
reaction on hearing his words was, ‘Stop kidding.’ Reality is, though 4
years have passed, the accident has not yet been brought to a close at
all… The Japanese government has issued a declaration that this is an
emergency situation. As a result, normal laws do not have to be
followed. What they are saying is that, in these very high radiation
exposure level areas, they have basically abandoned people to live
there. They’ve actually thrown them away to live there… The Cs-137
that’s fallen onto Japanese land in the Tohoku and Kanto regions, so
much so that this area should all be put under the radiation control
area designation [the Kanto region includes Tokyo and is home to over 40
million people].”

Footnote on Cs-137: Cesium-137 is one of the most problematic fission
isotopes as it easily moves and spreads in nature and has a half-life
of 30 years. It is deadly dangerous, for example: The Kramatorsk
Radiological Incident of 1989 in Ukraine a small capsule of Cs-137 was
discovered inside concrete walls of an apartment building, probably part
of a measurement device, lost and accidentally mixed with gravel used
to make concrete. For over 9 years two families lived in the apartment.
By the time the capsule was discovered, 6 residents had already died
from leukemia.

Fortunately for PM Abe, unfortunately for radiation victims,
radiation is a silent destroyer that slowly progresses over time. In
fact, it takes 5-40 years for the incubation period to take hold. Next
year is the 5th year.

Nevertheless, when hit by powerful rapid radiation exposure, too much
too soon, physical damage occurs relatively quickly, now experienced by
sailors of the USS Reagan that served in Japan in 2011.

U.S. Sailors File Lawsuit
Two hundred U.S. sailors of the USS Reagan have a pending lawsuit
filed in San Diego against TEPCO, General Electric, EBASCO, Toshiba and
Hitachi through the law offices of Bonner & Bonner, Sausalito, CA.
The plaintiffs won a crucial battle in the U.S. District Court/San Diego
last year, allowing the case to move forward.

“The lawsuit is based on the sailors’ participation in Operation
Tomodachi (meaning “Friends”), providing humanitarian relief after the
March 11, 2011 devastation caused by the Earthquake and Tsunami. The
lawsuit includes claims for illnesses such as leukemia, ulcers, gall
bladder removals, brain cancer, brain tumors, testicular cancer,
dysfunctional uterine bleeding, thyroid illnesses, stomach ailments and a
host of other complaints unusual in such young adults. The injured
servicemen and women will require treatment for their deteriorating
health, medical monitoring, payment of their medical bills, appropriate
health monitoring for their children, and monitoring for possible
radiation-induced genetic mutations,” Press Release, The Law Offices of
Bonner & Bonner, Sausalito, CA.

According to the press release, up to 70,000 U.S. citizens were
potentially affected by the radiation and will be able to join the class
action suit, which alleges that TEPCO deliberately lied to the public
and the U.S. Navy about radiation levels at the time the Japanese
government was requesting help.

Therein lies a prime example, although only alleged, of why official
sources in Japan cannot be trusted. Moreover, as far as convincing
evidence goes: How is it that a disproportionately high number of very
young naval personnel, all from the same ship, have severe medical
problems like leukemia and brain cancer?

Furthermore, according to Charles Bonner, Esq.: Additional plaintiffs
with serious aliments from radiation are continuing to come forward.

The Fukushima nuclear disaster is a grim tragedy that is extremely
difficult to fully understand or gain trustworthy information, in large
measure because the Japanese government instituted a new secrecy law,
Act on the Protection of Specially Designated Secrets, Act No. 108 that
is extraordinarily broad and provides up to 10 years in prison for
release of “state secrets,” which may be subjectively, not objectively,
defined by government bureaucrats… oh, isn’t that just grand!
Essentially, Japan surreptitiously institutes news blackouts of any
information that government employees don’t like, carte blanche.

“On Dec. 10, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s new special secrets law took
effect despite overwhelming public opposition. The new law gives
bureaucrats enormous powers to withhold information produced in the
course of their public duties that they deem a secret — entirely at
their own discretion — and with no effective oversight mechanism to
question or overturn such designations.

The law also grants the
government powers to imprison whistle-blowers, and prohibits disclosure
of classified material even if its intention is to protect the public
interest. This Draconian law also gives the government power to imprison
journalists merely for soliciting information that is classified a
secret,” Abe’s Secrets Law Undermines Japan’s Democracy, The Japan
Times, Dec. 13, 2014.

Once again: “This Draconian law gives the government power to
imprison journalists merely for soliciting information.” For merely
soliciting information, for merely soliciting information, gives the
government power to imprison journalists for merely soliciting info….
some footprints should never stop.

“Susumu Murakoshi, president of the Japan Federation of Bar
Associations, says the law should be abolished because it jeopardizes
democracy and the people’s right to know. Meiji University legal scholar
Lawrence Repeta agrees with Murakoshi,” Ibid.

What democracy?

Thus, on the surface, by all appearances, the government of Japan has
something to hide. It must be really big. Why else adopt a hard-hitting
secrecy law on the heels of the worst disaster to hit Japan since
America dropped A-bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Japan’s
citizenry really should expect consolation rather than aggravation,
intimidation, and terrorizing by their own government.

At the end of the day, George Orwell’s 1984 has captivated a radiantly glowing ancient country.